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Sep 21, 2009

Ants in My...

Cabinets! My new cabinets. Grrr.

I have researched all safe, green, and chemical-free ways to kick these nomads out of our kitchen. I read about chalk, cinnamon sticks, clove, and decided my strategy would be to set up some bait that was laced with a little something extra. In other words: orange marmalade with borax.

The plan was for them to find it, bring it back to the nest and to the queen, and let all the other little worker ants know. Then boom, they should all keel over or at least get the hint not to come back:

My first attempt was too potent, so all the hundreds of ants appear to have died upon immediate consumption. But hours later, all the bodies were gone. Every single one. Did the healthy ants become pallbearers and carry all the cadavers away? Even digging them out of the sticky jelly? So I concluded that my bait was too potent and they were temporarily passed out. In other words: fail.

Here is attempt # 2:

This is not supposed to be instant so after several days the results will become apparent. But the problem appeared to be worsening instead of getting better. And I grew impatient with this tamer version of bait. In other words: I resorted to chemicals.

Do you think my strategy would have been a success? Was my fatal plan fatally flawed? Was I just too impatient? Do you have better tips? To use or not to use chemicals?

2 comments:

When I lived in college dorms in California these kind of tiny ants (sometimes called sugar ants) were a big problem. What I've heard from other people who live in California is that they can be hard to get rid of and a lot of people just learn to live with a little line of them marching on the kitchen counters. In my experience, chemical sprays have worked to at least kill ones that are walking around, not necessarily the whole colony. I had them in my dorm for a while and I got traps that seemed to work pretty well. I also tried to keep all my food in sealed containers. They also seek out water in the spring (they were all over the community bathrooms). Hope some of this info helps!